After cuddling cats in Onomichi we take another shinkansen back to Osaka, Japan’s second largest city with over 2,5 milion inhabitans. We arrive early in the evening, around dinnertime, by the time we have navigated out of the (HUGE, ENOURMOUS) train station and assebled our bikes we are starving. It takes a while to find the right restaurant and by the time we’re fed we figure we might as well go have a beer because…

The Seto Sea is Japan’s inland sea and it is dotted with small islands. Over the next three days we will cycle from island to island, connected via elaborate bridges or sometimes a ferry. We start in Etajima, just south of Hiroshima. There are several cycling routes but the one we had our eyes on is, of course, closed, so we’re taking the one that goes straight over the hills in the middle of the…

Only in Japan: taking a Hello Kitty-themed bullet train (shinkansen) where one carriage is entirely pink and the restaurant car has a life-sized Kitty for photo opportunities. We take this train from Kyoto to Hiroshima to skip some of Japan’s most build-up areas where riding is less fun. We skip to the West. From Hiroshima, we’ll slowly island-hop and cycle Eastwards again towards, eventually, Tokyo. After the usual packing up the bike, hauling it through…

Sidewalks in Japan are ridiculous. They are everywhere, even along stretches of highway, and everyone cycles on them (even though technically you are supposed to cycle on the road I think) so that is good. They provide you with a nice refuge from busy traffic. Also good. But sometimes they also end abruptly, leaving you stranded on the wrong side of the road with no way to continue. Or they’re full of plants. Or they…

After our successful summit of Norikura pass (twice!) but our failed attempt at, you know, actually passing it, we were resolved to try again the next morning. We carefully counted our food options. Our ‘base camp’ was miles away from any supermarket, but with our emergency noodles and curry we would have enough food to see us through another attempt. The next morning, again, we woke up with frost on the tent and blue skies…

Planning a cycling trip is hard: you already know that almost nothing will go according to plan, and there are many uncertainties (earthquakes, typhoons, closed roads, technical failure…we’ve had all of it). But already before we started there was one big fat question mark hanging over the trip: will we be able to cycle Norikura Pass? Norikura Skyline Norikura Pass is Japan’s highest (paved) road with the saddle at 2716m, much higher than either of…

Day 46: Sad Spaghetti We finally manage to leave Nikko. Although it was nice to have a day there, it just feels like we haven’t really been moving much the last few days. Not to worry though, we’re about to enter the Northern Alps and there will be plenty of challenging climbs, starting today! Out of Nikko we head straight towards a series of switchbacks going up to Lake Chuzenji, from where we will summit…

We have a small to-do list for today: find a post office to send home a package with souvenirs, find breakfast, look at some temples and, most important, find a bike shop because the emergency repair on my tire is not going to get us far. It is literally held together with duct tape. Breakfast and post office are no problem, post offices and konbinis are in nearly every town. A bike shop is also…

We try to stretch our budget as much as we can, but some things just have to be experienced (and thus paid for) when touristing in another country. For Japan that would be enjoying a Ryokan, a traditional accomodation with meals and usually hot springs included. If we’re gonna splurge we want to do it right, so we found one of the most remote ryokan in Japan that we happened to be someehat nearby. To…

Because I’m pretty behind on my writing and want to catch up in one go, let’s try another format where I give you short snippets for each day. Day 35: Out of Akita Well rested after a double restday we hit the road again, but it is hard to leave the comfort of the hotel. We linger around forever, and navigating out of the city is slow with lots of traffic and lots of traffic…